Extend the Life of Your Contacts and Decrease Your Maintenance & Service Costs With NOsparc.

Arc Suppression Technologies manufactures the NOsparc range of arc suppressors – the world’s first true arc suppression technology. NOsparc suppressors are small in size and are simply wired in parallel to your arcing contact. NOsparc can extend the life of relays, contactors and switches by a factor of 100 times.

If you have a problem with contact arcing or contact sparking -NOsparc is the solution.

TheNOsparc family of contact arc suppressors protect relays and contactors from the destructive arc energy created in power switching. Such contact arcing or sparking causes significant damage to the contact surfaces in relays, contactors and switches.

Like a fire suppression system, actively looking for the instant of combustion; NOsparc arc suppression products actively look for arcing by detecting the occurrence of thermionic ignition induced by current constriction. When detected, the arc suppression active circuitry extinguishes the arc. Arc suppression is only active during actual arcing – suppression is not active when the contacts are open or closed. Alternative technologies passively anticipate the arc. They are not actively detecting the instant of arc ignition, limiting their success.

Industry has accepted this problem for over 125 years. The absence of real viable solutions in the market has forced industry to make do with inferior compromise solutions that only marginally improve product performance. We now offer a solution.

Advances in component technology have enabled Arc Suppression Technologies to develop the innovative NOsparc range of products that at the instant of arc formation automatically suppress contact arcs and offer unprecedented increases in mechanical lifetime, reliability and safety and abolishes the need for contact service and maintenance.

Relays, contactors, and other contact types such as snap-action switches work better with contact arc suppression!

Compare the nearly destroyed contacts of a relay operated for only 100,000 cycles without arc suppression – to the barely worn contacts of a relay operated for 1 Million cycles (a world first!) with a NOsparc suppressor.

Below is a brief video showing the dramatic difference between unsuppressed and suppressed contact current arcing:

This Demo video shows operation of a general purpose “icecube”-style relay switching a resistive load under two separate test conditions: (1) With no suppression element, and (2) With a NOsparc arc suppressor connected across the relay contacts.

The effectiveness of NOsparc is clearly seen in this video. NOsparc reduces destructive arc energy an average of 1250 times yielding a 100 times or more increase in device life expectancy. Badly worn contacts requiring regular expensive maintenance will no longer be a problem once a NOsparcarc suppressor is fitted.

Most product designers, engineers and technicians are taught that snubbers, varistors and transient suppressors are an arc suppression solution. Contrary to this teaching, none of these are arc suppressors. Whilst snubbers (passive RC – Resistor, Capacitor, Diode circuits) provide benefits at low power – for higher power applications (2A or more) snubbers provide literally NO value as an arc suppressor.

The following photos illustrate this “Snubber Myth” – they show the contacts of identical make/model of relays:

Pictures from left to right:

1. Pristine contacts from a relay fresh out of the box.

2. The nearly destroyed contacts from a relay operated under power for nearly 100,000 cycles.

3. The nearly destroyed contacts from a relay operated under power for 100,000 cycles with an RC snubber attached across the contacts. Nearly identical destruction to having no arc suppression!

4. The barely worn contacts from a relay operated for 100,000 cycles under power with a NOsparc arc suppressor attached across the contacts.

• Various “Snubbers”. Limitations & Disadvantages: Are NOT effective under higher power conditions ( 2A or more).

NOsparc arc suppressors overcome the limitations and disadvantages of these compromise solutions.

Innovative NOsparc arc suppressors now offer a real, viable and elegant solution for the electrical industry which has had to make do with inferior compromise solutions. Industry now has a true arc suppression solution -NOsparc is the solution.